Re: Professionalism can be bad

The last time I was paid by a company that was not ISO-9000 certified, I was working for the federal government of Canada. Over ten years ago. If I had one contractor like you ... my manager may have a small fit, but I'd be in heaven. Transparency, realistic dates, these would be awesome.

I'd like to point out that if you're going to be wrong on which direction to be formal, you've gone to the safe side. It is better to be more transparent and pessimistic than get management's hopes up and fail to meet the new hopes. You'll be blasted either way, but the alternative is significantly worse than what you're doing.

Not being in your shoes, it's really easy to say that you should explain your position to K - that the alternative could look even worse. Of course, explaining yourself is a lot easier said than done. I'm glad that my manager is the one telling me to do exactly that - overestimate rather than under.

Comment on Re: Professionalism can be bad

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Re^2: Professionalism can be bad by Whitehawke (Pilgrim) on Mar 13, 2005 at 03:46 UTC
Thanks for the support...it's great to hear. I should have explicitly stated that K was not criticizing me. He was letting me know about a problem that existed, and making it clear that he did not have this problem. He was really appreciative of the transparency; his suggestion was that I continue to send the "transparency" emails directly to him and not to the members of the team who were being bothered by it. K was also not just willing but eager to hear my suggestions for changes, and responded very positively when I made them--I told him I thought they should be using Subversion and, after I described the SV work cycle, he was ecstatic. K did me a good turn, letting me know about a potential issue early enough to address it, while also letting me know that I was valued and valuable. I have no complaints whatsoever. Just so that's all clear...I don't want to sound like I was slamming K.	[reply]

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Re^2: Professionalism can be bad
by Whitehawke (Pilgrim) on Mar 13, 2005 at 03:46 UTC

Thanks for the support...it's great to hear.

I should have explicitly stated that K was not criticizing me. He was letting me know about a problem that existed, and making it clear that he did not have this problem. He was really appreciative of the transparency; his suggestion was that I continue to send the "transparency" emails directly to him and not to the members of the team who were being bothered by it.

K was also not just willing but eager to hear my suggestions for changes, and responded very positively when I made them--I told him I thought they should be using Subversion and, after I described the SV work cycle, he was ecstatic. K did me a good turn, letting me know about a potential issue early enough to address it, while also letting me know that I was valued and valuable. I have no complaints whatsoever. Just so that's all clear...I don't want to sound like I was slamming K.

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